As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider enormously expensive cap-and-trade legislation, supposedly aimed at curbing alleged global warming caused by man-made emissions, scientists and policy makers at a conference in Chicago heard from experts in various scientific fields challenging the crumbling assumptions that have provided the foundation for global-warming alarmism.

Dr. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, was among those addressing the three-day conference. According to Professor Easterbrook, author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, the Earth is now in the beginning period of a trend of global cooling.

“Rather than global warming at a rate of 1 degree Fahrenheit per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030,” said Easterbrook, speaking on a scientific panel of the 4th International Conference on Climate Change. The cooling trend, Easterbrook says, will likely be followed by “global warming from about 2030 to 2060,” which will then be followed by another cooling spell for the next several decades. As reported previously in The New American, an increasing number of scientists are viewing the accumulated climate data as supportive of the proposition that our planet may be experiencing cooler, not warmer, temperatures for the next couple of decades. (See here, here, here, and here.)

Professor Easterbrook predicted that there will be twice as many people killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat, and that global food production will suffer due to shorter, cooler growing seasons and crop destruction from bad weather.

As noted in this December 2008 article in The New American, “Heat or Cold: Which Is More Deadly?”, and in this January 2010 article from The New American, “Forget Global Warming; COLD Kills,” predictions concerning the dire effects of a cooling planet versus a warming planet are supported by the evidence; a cooler earth would be more deadly than a warmer one. If Dr. Easterbrook and other scientists who predict a continuing climate cooling are correct, then access to affordable energy will be even more important than it is at present to avoid tremendous suffering and loss of human life. However, as critics point out (see here and here), the draft legislation released by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on May 12, known as the “American Power Act,” will give federal bureaucrats vastly expanded powers, drastically increase energy costs to consumers, and provide huge windfall profits to favored corporations and industries — without affecting global temperatures one iota.

Global Sea Levels Are Stable – No Rising Tides
The climate conference, sponsored by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, also heard from Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, one of the world’s foremost experts on sea levels and the emeritus head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University in Sweden.

Contrary to the frantic warnings of Al Gore, Prince Charles, and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as countless news stories over the past decade, sea levels are not rising, said Professor Morner. According to the computer models of climate alarmists, Venice, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Bangaladesh, the Maldives, New York City, and other coastal areas supposedly are in danger of deluge. However, Dr. Morner points out that the scientific data, from actual on-site measurements, as well as satellite data, show that the predictions of the modelers are “utterly wrong.” Morner, a world renowned physicist and geologist (and former IPCC member) who has traveled the world for decades measuring sea levels, conducted a recent study employing measurement data from 159 sites around the globe. The real-world data do not support the frightening scenarios of global doom and submerged coastal cities presented by the computer modelers.

“Models versus real observations — there’s a big difference,” Morner told the attendees at the Heartland conference. “With models, you only select what you want.”

Locations like Mubai have “certainly been stable for the last 40 years,” Morner said. And he noted that even in Italy’s famed city of Venice, often cited by alarmists, the water level is actually “slowly subsiding.” “Any increase would be easily picked up, Dr. Morner said. “The sea level there has not risen for 40 years. There is no record sea level [rise].”

But those inclined to dismiss the scientific arguments of Dr. Morner, might be more convinced by the investment choices of Al Gore, the chief prophet — and profiteer — of the Green Lobby.

Al Gore apparently doesn’t believe his own propaganda about impending calamitous sea level rises. (In his infamous film, An Inconvenient Truth, and in subsequent speeches and press conferences, Gore has ludicrously predicted sea-level rises of 20 feet, 10 times the already-exaggerated two-foot rise predicted by the IPCC, which was many times more than the relatively few millimeters or inches envisioned by more sober-minded scientists relying on actual data. See here and here).

If the globe-hopping, champagne-and-caviar-lifestyle, multi-millionaire, former Vice President of the United States truly believes that man-made global warming is going to cause the icecaps and glaciers to melt and flood the world’s coastlines, he wouldn’t be investing in California coastal real estate. However, he has purchased property in two of the most expensive locales, and (according to his own alarmist claims) areas most vulnerable to sea level rises. In 2005, Al and Tipper Gore purchased an ocean-front penthouse at San Francisco’s St. Regis condo/hotel tower, one of the most expensive addresses in the world, apparently unconcerned that rising sea levels might soon deluge the hotel lobby, if not their own dining room.

The Gores, who admonished the rest of us to “reduce, reuse, recycle” and to learn to get by with less and less, apparently wanted more and more. The St. Regis was not enough. The Los Angeles Times reported in April that Al and Tipper have added another trophy property to their San Fran penthouse and Tennessee mansion, this time in the tony community of Montecitio, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. The Times reports:

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Al Gore’s money seems to be saying that he places more confidence in the predictions of Nils-Axel Morner than in his own predictions or those of his fellow Nobel Prize winners at the IPCC.

The speeches, presentations, and panel discussions of the scientists, economists, and policy advocates at the 4th International Conference on Climate Change, which took place May 16-18, can be viewed at the Heartland Institute’s website here or Pajama Media’s “Climategate 2010” page here.